Common Council Receives Covid-19 Update At 09/15/2021 Common Council Meeting – Between September 1 And September 15, Breakthrough Cases In Fully Vaccinated Appleton Residents Accounted For 30% Of Cases

During the 09/15/2021 Common Council meeting Interim Health Officer Sonja Jensen presented a Covid-19 Update. I won’t run through the various numbers she gave regarding cases and vaccination rates because those will already be out of date other than to note that community vaccination rates were up about 1% compared to the previous week. The full numbers are available in the PDF of the PowerPoint slides that she presented.

Although the case numbers are already out of date, there are items of value in the rest of the presentation. Of particular interest is the fact that Interim Health Officer Jensen reported that between January 1^st and September 15, 7.6% of coronavirus cases in Appleton had been breakthrough cases. This is an increase of over 2% from the 5.2% it had been as of the end of August.

[This part that I’m now going to outline was not included in the Covid-19 Update, but I think it’s important to give some actual numbers to the percentages Interim Health Officer Jensen presented to the Common Council.

• Between January 1 and August 15, Appleton recorded 2,743 coronavirus cases. 4.4% of that is 120.69.
• Between January 1 and August 31, Appleton recorded 3,115 coronavirus cases. 5.2% of that is 161.98.
• Between January 1 and September 15, Appleton recorded 3,455 coronavirus cases. 7.6% of that is 262.58.

So, essentially, from January 1-August 15, an 8 1/2 month time span, Appleton only had approximately 121 breakthrough cases. In the next two weeks, from August 16 through August 31, we had approximately 41 breakthrough cases. Then from September 1 through September 15 we had approximately 101 breakthrough cases. Our breakthrough cases over the last 4 weeks are greater than our breakthrough cases during the entire first 8 ½ months of the year, and our breakthrough cases over the last 2 weeks are more than double the number of breakthrough cases in the prior two week time frame.

• Between January 1 and August 15, Appleton had 2,743 total cases and 120.69 breakthrough cases – a breakthrough rate of 4.4%
• Between August 16 and August 31, Appleton had 372 total cases and 41.29 breakthrough cases – a breakthrough rate of 11.1%
• Between September 1 and September 15, Appleton had 340 cases and 100.6 breakthrough cases – a breakthrough rate of 29.6%

Essentially, at this point, it seems Appleton is looking at a breakthrough case rate of 30%.

While, technically, it is accurate to say that between January 1 and September 15 of 2021 the breakthrough rate of Covid cases in Appleton is 7.6%, that number really doesn’t seem like it properly conveys to the community or to the Common Council exactly what is currently going on regarding Covid cases in Appleton.]

Interim Health Officer Jenses noted that statewide data regarding breakthrough cases could be viewed on the WI Department of Health Services website.

Alderperson Denise Fenton (District 6) said she read an article in which ThedaCare stated that 80% of their hospitalized Covid patients and 83% of their ICU Covid patients were non-vaccinated. She asked if there was a concern that the community was seeing an increase in the level of fully vaccinated patients being hospitalized and placed in the ICU?

Interim Health Officer Jensen said she hadn’t read that article but it was something she could look into. When she last looked at the statewide level and the Healthcare Emergency Readiness Coalition (HERC) level people who were not fully vaccinated still accounted for over 90% of hospitalizations.

Alderperson Sheri Harzheim (District 13) said that there had been an issue with the reporting of daily cases and the weekend numbers had been artificially low. She wanted to know if we would see artificially high numbers to make up the difference.  

Interim Health Officer Jensen thought the numbers coming through on Monday and Tuesday might have been higher.

Alderperson Nate Wolff (District 12) wanted to confirm how much vaccination rates had gone up since 4 weeks ago. 

Interim Health Officer Jensen didn’t have the numbers in front of her but could say that the vaccination rate had increased by about one percentage point from 2 weeks before.

Alderperson Kristin Alfheim (District 11) said that case numbers looked very similar right now as compared to last year at this time. She wanted to know what Interim Health Officer Jensen’s prediction was. With the help of vaccination were we hoping to not see the spike Appleton saw last year, or at this point was she seeing that that was the trajectory and we should expect a spike?

Interim Health Officer Jensen responded that she didn’t want to speculate too much because she obviously didn’t have a crystal ball; however, representatives from the health systems in the area and around the country have been doing some modelling for this particular surge and so far Appleton has followed along just like the modelling has predicted. The modelling suggested that the current surge would peak in mid-September starting around the 10th or 11th, “so the hope is, if the model follows that we start to eventually go downward over, like a, I think–so it shouldn’t be as high or sustained as we were last fall and winter according to all the models we have with this Delta Variant. And part of that would have to do with the vaccinations. Like I said, i don’t have a crystal ball; I don’t want to predict too much, but that’s what the models are showing that it should not, hopefully, be like it was last fall and winter where it’s sustained and high like that.”